Shinan Govani at the launch party for his new book, Boldface Names (Photo by Jen McNeely)

Amid TIFF hoopla, the National Post’s society and celebrity ink slinger, Shinan Govani, held a launch for his book Boldface Names at the Holts Café—an event that seemed to procure more boldface names than Vanity Fair’s tiresome TIFF party the night prior. The event condensed every big schmoozer-boozer in the city, culminating in champagne-induced strategic chit-chat, name-dropping and back-handed gossip.

Few parties in Toronto could hope to pull in so many prominent figures. Here’s a run-down of the crowd: Jeff Stober owner of the Drake Hotel, Amber’s Toufik Tarwa, ever-so-tanned club king Michael King, Zoomer’s Suzanne Boyd, Society dolls Ashleigh Dempster and Amanda Blakley, Ben Mulroney of eTalk, Roots founder Michael Budman, Fashion Television’s Glen Baxter, Hello! Canada’s Ciara Hunt, brash book agent Sam Hiyate, Bustle’s design man Shawn Hewson, PR powerwomen Debra Goldblatt and Natasha Koiffman, actor Kristin Booth, singer Jill Barber, the Globe’s Leah McLaren (who rode her bike into Holt Renfrew) and a sprinkle of hot-to-trot 20-somethings that brought just the right amount of sexiness to mill about the lingerie section.

“I feel like this is my wedding,” Govani chuckled, holding up two giant bottles of champers. Anna von Frances, don of Pink Mafia and notorious troublemaker, also commented on the launch: “It’s about fucking time that we celebrate somebody other than the vapid idiots we normally do. I’m very proud of Shinan”.

Govani loyalists all seem to consider him an ongoing guide for politics, trends, society and influence. A non-fiction account of his work would have certainly sizzled with juicy tales (part of the fun in Boldface Names is decoding the muses) since the man seems to know even the smallest details of people’s lives. That fact was driven home to us, as we we were hitching a ride with Govani on the midnight party train, when a woman inquired whether Megan Fox was still in town, “She left at 3:54 p.m.,” replied Govani. It would not surprise us if he had eyes and ears at the airport security checkpoint.